


Halloween mayhem

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Depressed Eliot Waugh, Family Bonding, Gen, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Julia Wicker is a Good Friend, Post-Season/Series 05, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:41:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27279661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Honestly, the whole thing was Julia's idea, and after having some time to think it over, and frankly, not much choice, Penny decided that it was actually a good idea.
Relationships: 23rd Timeline William "Penny" Adiyodi/Julia Wicker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Halloween mayhem

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I wrote this. I haven't even watched the show. I think I just really wanted the remaining magicians to comfort each other after being abandoned and all their friends leaving them. I don't know. I'm not happy with this fic but I'm sick of looking at it, so here you go.

Honestly, the whole thing was Julia's idea, and after having some time to think it over, and frankly, not much choice, Penny decided that it was actually a good idea.

They spent most of their time searching desperately for their missing friends, but on the rare occasion that they decided to take a break, they often returned to the apartment gifted to them by Kady, who no longer had use for all the rooms now that there were less of them, though they had remodelled it to their own needs while also keeping it mostly the same.

They had put new curtains up over the windows. They had put nicer, softer blankets and pillows and matrices on the bed in the biggest room that they had claimed for their own. The kitchen was stocked with things that specially catered to their needs. One of the bedrooms contained a crib and the rest of Hope's belongings. 

But there was still a sense of something sacred, of something untouchable about the place. The memories of their friends were rich n this place, and though it was their home now, they just couldn't bring themselves to change it. Eliot's favourite ties were still folded neatly in a drawer, Margo's spare eyepatches placed snugly beside them. The magical tomes that Alice had diligently studied were in the bookshelf. Some of Fen's knives were scattered across the living room, on tables, on the tops of counters. Josh's high-quality cooking equipment and utensils still populated the kitchen. Kady still came around often, considering it was still her apartment that she was loaning to them until they found a more permanent place, though she was kind enough to leave them alone in their rooms when she was running Hedgewitch meetings. Even then, she had taken most of her things with her save for a few trinkets. 

And Quinton... he was everywhere. He never left. He was in the walls, the blankets, the very ground they walked on. His books were on the shelves and his clothes were still untouched in the wardrobes. It was like living with their friend, even if he was just a memory. If they closed their eyes and sat very quietly, they could almost imagine that they lived in a world where Quinton didn't die and that their world was still ticking the way it should.

Lately, while they've been jumping around the place trying to find their missing friends, they hadn't really taken advantage of their downtime as they should have. They had a young baby to take care of, so you could cut them some slack.

Maybe he shouldn't have been so surprised when Julia burst through the door while he was sitting on the floor with Hope, supporting her back as she wobbled and played with her blocks. Julia sat on the ground before them, almost vibrating with barely concealed excitement. "Penny?" she asked shyly.

"Julia," he replied as Hope's tower of blocks fell and she began to build it back up again.

"What are your opinions on Halloween?" she asked. "Honestly."

Penny frowned. He never really had much to do with the holiday and back in his timeline, there wasn't all that much reason to celebrate. Not with Julia dead and the Beast ruling the roost.

The question surprised him, but not as much as Julia's reaction to it did. "Honestly, I have no opinion," he said. "Why?"

Julia carefully considered her words before she spoke, but the look on her face said loud and clear that she didn't particularly care. "I've been thinking about it for quite a while and- look, I don't want you to think that I was planning things without you because that's not what we're about anymore and-"

"Julia," Penny gently cut her off and her mouth shut with an audible click. "No worries. What are you trying to say?"

She took a deep breath, a blush colouring her cheeks. "I want to celebrate Halloween this year," she said simply. "I think that we should all dress up as a family and have some fun for once in our miserable fucking lives."

The conviction in her voice was so strong that it gave Penny pause. "OK..." he said. "No problem with that, but why? Why Halloween? We're a little too old for trick-or-treating, aren't we?"

She sighed and her shoulders slumped a little. "Not even to go trick-or-treating," she said. "Just to dress up, be free, feel like kids again. Be anonymous in a crowd full of other people doing the exact same thing. Worrying about what costumes we're going to wear and not the life and death of two words and our best friends."

That gave him more pause. Not that he ever would have in the first place, but that made him rethink rejecting the idea. He had never thought about Halloween like that, but now, he found himself wondering if maybe they did, in fact, deserve this. 

He glanced down at Hope in his hands. She had gotten tired with the blocks and was now sucking on a plastic doll like a pacifier. Maybe he had never gotten into the season, and maybe Julia was a little too old for trick-or-treating, but Hope certainly deserved her first Halloween to be like every other child's, despite her not being like any other children.

"Of course," Penny said as he faced her with a smile. "I think it's a great idea."

She blinked up at him, surprised. "You do?"

"Yeah, I do," He smiled. "You're right. We do deserve this. Need it, even. And after all the shit we've done for this world? After all the things we've sacrificed for it? It owes us one night of fun. So, what did you have in mind?"

When she beamed, he felt like it was all worth it. "I'm thinking that we should all dress up, like a family. Mabe nothing matching, but I do think that we should all wear _something_."

Penny hummed in fake thought. "Any ideas?"

"Not yet, but I'll think of something," Julia glanced away from him and down to Hope, gently running her hands over her faintly furred scalp. She pursed her lips, looking reluctant as she powered on with her request regardless of how foolish she felt. "I think that we should visit Breakbills."

"Now?"

"No, not now," she scoffed, reaching out and shoving him lightly on the shoulder. He went with it, laughing, and rolled onto his back. "I meant on Halloween."

He was silent as he contemplated and idly watched Hope topple backwards until she was resting, cupped safely in the palm of his hand. He didn't want to question her too much, but... "Why Breakbills? The place never seemed to be that kind of celebratory place."

Humming, Julia picked up one of Hope's many toys and turned it over. "I think that Eliot is lonely there," she said quietly, and Penny snapped his head over to look at her in surprise. "He really has no one anymore. Margo is gone. Fen is gone. Q is dead. We're not around much anymore. He's all alone. Sure, he has Charlton, but he hasn't got any of _us_. I think he's lonely, and probably a little sad."

As he considered it, he lifted Hope off the ground and onto his chest, where she sprawled out and wiggled onto her front with a contented warble. "I think that's a great idea," he said. "We haven't been by in ages. He could probably use the company."

Brushing her hair out of her face, Julia glanced at Hope, who had turned her head still resting against Penny's chest, to look at her mother. "I think Eliot is the one one of us who didn't get a happy ending," she said. "He's teaching at a school he hates because he has nowhere else to go. His only friend is his boyfriend and they only met because they were both possessed by the same world-ending creature. Margo is well and truly gone from Eliot's life for the first time... _ever_. I really think that he got the short end of the stick."

Penny would be lying if he said that he had thought about Eliot at all over the past year, but now that she had mentioned it, he felt incredibly guilty. Eliot's future looked bleak compared to theirs, and this was only reaffirmed by Hope kicking her legs against him. "Do you think that if he had been given the choice, he would have stayed in Fillory?"

Sighing heavily through her nose, Julia shook her head until her hair fell forward and framed her face and she looked sadly back down to the ground. "I hate to say it, but I have no idea."

And so that was that. Penny let Julia take charge of choosing the costumes, providing his opinion when she asked, and they steadily began to build up the excitement towards the day of Halloween. Penny had thought it would be easy. Pick a few costumes, get candy. But Julia wanted everything to be perfect, and that included the perfect costumes.

There were many different combinations of many different outfits. At first, she had intended them to all go as animals- Penny a dog, her a cat and Hope a little bunny rabbit. Then she wanted them to dress up as pirates with Hope as a parrot, then as circus acts with Hope as a monkey. None of them was quite as perfect as she wanted them to be, and every time she suggested something, she shut it down herself just a quickly, disappointed in herself for her bad ideas.

One day, she burst into the apartment as Penny was lifting Hope up out of her cot after she had woken up after a rather long nap, cranky and sleepy. Julia had the biggest grin on her face, but there was also something secretive there, and something proud, so proud that her smile that her eyes crinkled up with the pure size of it. She held her hands behind her back.

"What?" Penny laughed at her eagerness. "What is it?"

From behind her back, she produced what could only be described as a little tuxedo made of soft fabric and a headband with a top-hat clipped onto it at a jaunty angle. Penny looked at it for a long time, confused. "So?" she asked when he didn't reply. "What do you think? Is this the one?"

He frowned. "What _is_ it?"

Exasperated, she sighed and flapped it around for a bit before she brought it closer so he could look at it better. There was a glittery black tie printed onto the fabric. "It's a _magician_!" she said. "For Hope!"

And suddenly it all clicked into place. As Penny stared at it for longer, he decided that it was the stupidest thing he had ever heard of. And he loved it.

Once Hope's costume was chosen, a new frenzy was put on choosing their own costumes as Halloween closed in. But still, no matter what they did, what store they went to, what websites they searched, there was nothing they could consider _perfect_. Good, sure, fitting, yes, but not perfect. And they wanted their first Halloween as a family to be absolutely perfect.

It wasn't until the last week leading up to Halloween when they had given up on finding the right outfit and just settling for something subpar, when Julia emerged from one of the long-empty bedrooms as she had weeks ago, with her hand behind her back and a cautiously optimistic smile on her face. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to. When Penny crossed the space to meet her, she produced her hands from behind her back. In one hand she held one of Eliot's favourite ties, folded carefully, and one of Margo's intricate eyepatches, spotless as the day she last wore it. 

From there, it became a matter of building the costumes from the inside out. Penny found a black wig and a hideously patterned and brightly coloured tuxedo and a bedazzled chalice. Julia found a burgundy pantsuit and large jewellery and a tiara that was a close approximation of the one she wore in Fillory.

On Halloween night, in their humble opinion, everything was just as perfect as they wanted it to be.

Together, Penny took them to the outskirts of Breakbills just as the sun was beginning to set, and after greeting the faculty, they made their way around to the side of the school, where they knew Eliot had been staying. 

Eliot and Charlton's cottage was a modest building, with the upstairs floor popularising a single bedroom, and the downstairs area containing everything they could need. The kitchen, the lounge room, the study, the bathroom, the bar. It had been gifted to them by the school once Eliot had taken up a teaching position, and it became obvious that they no longer felt like they fit in with the rambunctious occupants of the Physical Kids Cottage. So, their private little home had been devised, and though it was quaint and lovely, neither Julia nor Penny had ever been inside during the whole year Eliot had lived thre.

The door was answered by a vaguely familiar face that wasn't Eliot at all. "Oh," Charlon blinked in surprise. "We weren't expecting guests, and especially none in... costume? Oh, right, yes. Eliot was telling me about this 'Halloween' that you celebrate here. You're Eliot's old friends, yes? The Magicians from Fillory? Hold on a moment."

Before they could utter a word, the door was shut again. Julia and Penny exchanged a glance while Hope cooed in her swaddle. They heard shuffling and soft conversation from inside, before the handle was turned with the faint grinding of metal on metal and the door was opened once again.

Eliot looked more tired than he had when they last saw him, with bruises under his eyes, a gauntness to his features and a tired smile that was half the brightness it used to be. He wore a boring black suit, but his tie was just as extravagant as they remembered it. He held a glass in his hand with a dark amber liquid sloshing within. While this was definitely Eliot, it wasn't the Eliot they remembered, but it was still the Eliot they loved.

"Good evening, esteemed guests of our humble abode, how may I help you this fine-" Eliot looked uninterested as he spoke, but when Hope made a noise to cut through his guise of politeness, he blinked hard and looked, _really_ looked at the people on his doorstep. He took in Penny and his shitty wig and his ugly suit and one of Eliot's favourite ties. He took in Julia with her dangling earrings and the jumpsuit she had decorated with cheap lace and one of Margo's beautiful eyepatches strapped across her face. And he took in little Hope, curled up against Penny's chest in her little magician's outfit, and he burst out laughing. But it was a fractured sort of laugh, almost lie he was on the cusp of crying. "Holy fucking _shit_ , what are you guys _doing_ here?"

"We've come to see you," Julia laughed as she lunged forward to wrap her arms around his neck. "Happy Halloween."

"I hope you've got some candy in there, or this whole trip will have been for nothing," Penny teased, but even he seemed a little choked up. Only a little though.

When Julia pulled back, Eliot looked between the two of them again, eyes resting longer on his tie around Penny's neck and Margo's eyepatch on Julia's face. "Wait a fucking second, are you dressed up like _me_?" Penny nodded. "And you're...? Fuck, you're _Margo_?" Julia beamed. "She'd kick your fucking ass if she ever saw you doing this."

"Probably," Julia shrugged. "But she's not here right now. How about the three of us hang out instead, just like old times? You can make us some drinks, we can eat candy until we feel sick, and we can just be a family again?"

The mention of Margo's absence made Eliot's smile strain again, but at the mention of family, his eyes lit up in a way that they hadn't done in a very long time. "Of course! Come in, come in. Charlton will have a fit once he gets to see Hope in her costume, I mean really, a _magician_? Genious. Utter genius. I couldn't have done it any better myself,"

As Eliot escorted them further into the house, rambling absently as he did, Penny bumped Julia with his hip, "Hey," he said gently. "This was a really good idea."

"Of course it was," she replied cheekily. "It was mine."


End file.
